WHOA Farm owners give away the food in Sonoma County

Updated 2:44 pm, Saturday, April 25, 2015

Farmer Balyn Rose plows a piece of land with Austrian Haflinger horses Mark and Chip at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Farmer Balyn Rose plows a piece of land with Austrian Haflinger horses Mark and Chip at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

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Farmer Balyn Rose at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley.

Farmer Balyn Rose at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

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Chickens in front a gypsy chicken house at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Chickens in front a gypsy chicken house at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

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Fresh lettuce and arugala grow in a raised bed at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Fresh lettuce and arugala grow in a raised bed at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture farm in Bennett Valley, Calif., Friday, April 17, 2015.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

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A metal seat keeps the plow driver in place while a pair of Austrian Haflinger horses, brothers Mark and Chip, keep things shipshape at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture Farm in Bennett Valley.

A metal seat keeps the plow driver in place while a pair of Austrian Haflinger horses, brothers Mark and Chip, keep things shipshape at the Work Horse Organic Agriculture Farm in Bennett Valley.

Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle

WHOA Farm owners give away the food in Sonoma County

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Now in its fifth year of operations, WHOA Farm has yet to make a profit. In fact, with annual operating costs of around $300,000 for labor, feed for the plow horses, cultivation and maintenance, the property in southeast Santa Rosa has not made a penny.

And owner Eddie Gelsman hopes to keep it that way for a good, long time. The nonprofit organization is his experiment in solving the world’s all-too-ubiquitous problems of hunger, poor nutrition, concerns about industrialized foods and unsustainably managed food production. To achieve that, he has been giving away the farm.

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Five years ago, Gelsman and his wife, Wendy Mardigian, dreamed up Work Horse Organic Agriculture, starting with 2 acres flanking Crane Melon Barn on Petaluma Road near Bennett Valley. Over the next few years, they expanded to 6 acres, planted hay, then vegetables, established some orchards, hired a head farmer and some support staff, bought draft horses and chickens, and then watched their money flood out the door as they gave away every single thing they harvested.

“It’s the single greatest thing in my life other than when my wife gave birth to our sons,” said Gelsman, who has enjoyed a lucrative career for more than two decades as a wine importer and wholesaler with his Wine Library in Petaluma.

It seems a labor of love for everyone involved, yet from the beginning, Gelsman realized that in order for his dream to continue, he needed to remain sustainable himself. So now he is focusing on his next project, making and selling Pinot Noir, sourced from an 8-acre vineyard he leased between two WHOA parcels behind the Crane barn. The goal is for sales to ultimately pay for at least half the farm’s operating budget.

From its founding, the effort has been funded almost entirely by Gelsman and his wife. But in order to maintain WHOA’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and to be eligible for government grants, the farm needs to have an established outside funding program, Gelsman explained.

As his first grape harvest loomed, he partnered with Guy Davis of Davis Family Vineyards of Healdsburg, who agreed to make the wine at no charge. Finally, in September, Gelsman released the first WHOA private-label wine, a 2012 vintage with 600 cases produced and priced at $55 a bottle online.

All the profits go toward the monumental costs of farm management, and the daily demands of providing up to 500 meals a day for Sonoma County nutrition clinics and food kitchens. It’s been well received, said Gelsman, with some 400 cases already sold, and being poured at restaurants such as Jardinière, Hayes Street Grill, Bix, Zuni and Boulevard in San Francisco, Zazu and Gypsy Cafe in Sebastopol, Healdsburg Bar & Grill, and Hana Japanese in Rohnert Park.

The WHOA idea actually began percolating about 15 years ago, as Mardigian cultivated a 2-acre garden at the couple’s Sonoma County home, and started donating excess produce to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Sonoma County. There, she said, she was told that vast amount of donations end up being thrown away because lettuce often arrives rotten, and products outdated.

“Life has dealt us a good hand,” said Gelsman. “We couldn’t sit on the sidelines and watch homeless people in Railroad Square, and see elementary schoolkids with diabetes just because they don’t get enough fresh, good food.” So the couple bought about 100 acres in several parcels near Santa Rosa, including 80 acres of sheep for meat they now sell to restaurants like Zuni and Boulevard.

Embracing old-school farm philosophies, they hired a like-minded couple, Balyn and Elli Rose, whom they met at local farmers’ markets. Balyn had grown up on Sonoma Mountain, and studied agroecology, sustainable food systems and organic farming at UC Santa Cruz. The Roses moved into an old farmhouse on the WHOA property and set about learning plowing, tilling, harrowing, hilling, shaping, seeding and harvesting.

Two draft horses joined the family — brothers Mark and Chip, two light chestnut, flaxen-maned Austrian Haflingers that Balyn learned to strap into leathers and pull a Pioneer sulky plow to handle everything from the first turn of the soil to digging up the Bodega Red 'Superstar’ potatoes.

“It was a calling, and now it’s become a lifestyle,” said Balyn, looking the part with his blond beard and a giant hat to shade him from the sun. In 2012, he went to Montana to study with Doc Hammill, a master teamster who has worked with draft horses for nearly half a century. Balyn’s daughter, Olivia, was born on the farm, and now toddles around, helping feed the 100-plus Barred Rock and Ancona chickens that live in coops and peck the earth under a mobile chicken tractor that is a reconfigured World War II bomb trailer.

“I’m learning it is art as much as science,” Balyn said. “These fields are my paintings. You can see them swell, thrive and die — they’re in constant transformation.”

The science seems to be working as well, as 2013 was the first year of farming with horses, and now their footwork and manure helps feed more than 50 types of fruits and vegetables. There are tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, apples, okra, eggplant and kale, with WHOA priding itself on produce harvested between 7:30 a.m. and noon and usually delivered the same day.

Yet WHOA also focuses on staple crops that are not commonly grown in the area, such as polenta corn, popcorn, dry beans, soybeans and hearty winter greens.

“(Food banks) need things that are shelf stable and offer great protein,” Balyn explained. “Sometimes 'fresh’ green beans in stores are old, and have no nutrition. Diversity is key, too, to keep people healthy and give them lots to explore for interesting taste.”

This is the final year of a $65,000 grant spread over three years from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so Gelsman is now stepping up efforts to find support, with small donations coming in.

Last winter, WHOA scored a gift that still has everyone on the farm grinning. World Centric compostable food packaging of Petaluma donated a $5,000 grain thresher that allows the team to make flour from the wheat grown on the farm, which is turned into bread and given away.

“It’s a long-term project, to create something that’s not dependent on my paycheck,” Gelsman said. “To be sustainable, we’ve got to get community involved. And I figured, what better way to contribute than buy wine?”

Educational tours are available by appointment. (707) 585-0800. www.whoafarm.org.

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